New York rap trio De La Soul take fans behind the scenes of the official music video for “Me, Myself and I,” in the latest installment of Vevo Footnotes, premiering today. The exclusive content is part of Vevo’s celebration to honor the historic 50th Anniversary of Hip-Hop.
During the episode, Posdnuos of De La Soul discusses the creation of their iconic song, and how it allowed the group to address negative media labels. He highlights how the ‘Twilight Zone’ influenced the video’s opening segment with producer Prince Paul and their comedic approach to the video, playing off their hip-hop style. He explains the video aimed to underscore individuality and confidence, and Posdnuos suggests that if they remade the video today, they might focus on inner growth instead of external independence. He also shares a standout memory from the video’s scene with teacher Def Beat, and reveals that Ali Shaheed Muhammad from A Tribe Called Quest wrote “De La Sucks” on the bathroom wall.
Below is a complete outline of “Me, Myself & I” I Vevo Footnotes:
00:19 – I’m a big ‘Twilight Zone’ fan, so when it was time to figure out how to include [producer] Prince Paul in the video, we went with him being a hip-hop Rod Serling to set up the story. – Posdnuos
00:43 – The words were written pretty quick. The cadence was taken from a song called “Black Is Black” by Jungle Brothers, featuring Q-Tip. “(Not Just) Knee Deep” by Funkadelic was a song Maseo always wanted to sample. He and Prince Paul put the bulk of it together. – Posdnuos
01:08 – The press was referring to us as the hippies of hip-hop. This song became a way to express that this wasn’t a gimmick, and that we were being ourselves. This is why in my first verse I say, “You say Plug 1 & 2 are hippies, no we’re not, that’s pure Plug bull.” – Posdnuos
01:28 – We did it in a comedic way playing off what was considered the conventional look for a hip-hop kid vs. a non conventional way of looking. – Posdnuos
01:54 – [A standout memory was] shooting the scene where the teacher Def Beat throws the record into one of the student’s heads. All the students were all fans of our music and were happy to have the opportunity to be in the video. – Posdnuos
02:13 – Ali Shaheed [from A Tribe Called Quest] was the guy who wrote De La Sucks on the bathroom wall. – Posdnuos
02:43 – This video underscored individuality – confidence in owning who you are and want to be, regardless of what others think. It was our first video with a budget. – Posdnuos
03:13 – [If it were remade today] maybe you could flip the video on its head, where everyone is dressing so different and cool and loud and someone wants to dress down and plain because they are more focused on their inner growth than their out independence. – Posdnuos
